State report card on Columbus schools won’t come with rest

Columbus school attendance scandal

Columbus City Schools employees -- and perhaps others in schools throughout the state -- are accused of falsifying students' records to improve their schools' standing on state report cards. Read the complete series.

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With a statewide investigation of student-data rigging done, the Ohio Department of Education now will release complete versions of the long-awaited school report cards.

For most schools and districts, that means the 2011-12 report cards will be final by the end of the month. But others, including the nine districts implicated as “scrubbers” of student data, will have their report cards recalculated. Forty-eight more districts (representing dozens of schools) that made lesser data errors also are likely to get a second look.

Report cards for the nine “scrubbing” districts — including Columbus schools — likely will be marked in some way to indicate that the state still is reviewing the data. Department officials haven’t decided whether districts found to have made mistakes — though not to have willfully manipulated data — also will be marked.

The report cards, which include overall grades for schools and districts, typically are released in August. The investigation by State Auditor Dave Yost has been under way since July; it created questions about whether the grades should be issued. Partial report cards were released in the fall, but much of the data hasn’t been made public yet.

“We now have to start our process to look at each of the districts identified,” acting State Superintendent Michael Sawyers said. “What was the overall impact to the local report card?” He said the department is devising a “strategic and deliberate process to determine if, in fact, they falsely increased their overall rating in the school district by giving us inaccurate data.”

Yost named Columbus, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Marion, Toledo, Campbell in Mahoning County, Northridge in Montgomery County and Winton Woods in Hamilton County as systemic “scrubbers.” Using different methods, each district withdrew students without lawful reason. The effect was those students’ test scores and absences didn’t count for report-card purposes, which could have falsely inflated their ratings.

Yost also referred the nine districts to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General, which he said will investigate and work with federal prosecutors if criminal wrongdoing is involved.

Columbus’ school- and district-level report cards won’t be recalculated right away. The investigation there is separate and not done yet. Yost said the district appears to have changed students’ grades. Also, the FBI is investigating, which complicates matters. State Education Department spokesman John Charlton said the department will wait until all investigations are complete in Columbus before it steps in.

The state also is likely to review whether individual school employees in the districts should be held responsible for submitting false data. The department’s Office of Professional Conduct deals with educator discipline and will enter the fray as the department’s review moves forward.

“If persons have knowingly and falsely provided incorrect data to the department in order to have a direct benefit to their local report card, we will pursue them in any and all ways possible,” Sawyers said.

Sawyers also said yesterday that he’s likely to take Yost’s suggestion that per-pupil funding for schools be based on several head counts throughout the year. That might make it harder for districts to “scrub” students, as their being properly enrolled would be tied to money. Now, students are counted only during a week in October. Sawyers said he’ll bring the proposal to the State Board of Education and that the new head-count method could be in place for next school year.